Packrafting: A Beginner's Guide: Buying, Learning & Exploring

by Chris Scott

Packrafts are rugged, portable rafts, small enough to attach under a rucksack, but stable on the water to reassure first time paddlers. Weighing from 1-3 kilos, they open up a whole new world of amphibious adventuring, from navigating easily accessible waterways to discovering more challenging rivers and lochs only reachable on foot or bicycle.
Packrafting: A Beginners’ Guide is a perfect introduction to the game-changing recreational opportunities opened up by packrafting. It takes you through the different types and features of packrafts to ensure that you buy a boat that is right for you and have the right gear to use with it. It clearly explains the basic paddling skills and how to safely evaluate risks on the water. It also introduces the different types of adventures you can undertake with your packraft, from paddling a local canal or river to lashing a bicycle over the bow or using a packable sail to traverse open water.
The book is comprehensively illustrated with over 120 colour photographs making it easy to understand and clear to follow.



Introduction

About Packrafts

On the Water: The Basics

Inflation Valves & Pumps

Packrafting Gear

Outfitting & Load Carrying

Packraft Care & Repair

On the Trail: Basic Gear

Safety & Weather

Bikerafting

Packraft Sailing

Packrafting at Sea

Packrafting Adventures.

145 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 31, 2022

About the author

After exploring the Sahara in 1980s, I wrote Desert Biking in 1993. That evolved into today's Adventure Motorcycling Handbook, now in its 6th edition. I also co-wrote several editions of Australia for Rough Guides and worked on other RG titles. Desert Travels, a Saharan travelogue came next, then Sahara Overland, Overlanders Handbook, and Morocco Overland, all for Trailblazer Guides. I also enjoy updating Trailblazer's British walking guides once in a while.
I recently reprinted Desert Travels alongside a new book: Adventures in Motorcycling, an urban motobiography paralleling the DT era of the 1980s, but telling a quite different story.